The Strategic Approach to Hockey Betting

In the sports betting world, different sports are often grouped together because of how similar they are. For example, placing wagers on soccer/football is often compared to hockey betting because they have several things in common. They are both games with low scores a majority of the time, and they are both games that do not easily make themselves available to spread betting. If you want to get in on the action with hockey and try to get an advantage, however, then you also have to recognize the differences in the games and what makes hockey unique when compared to other sports.

Offense and Defense in Hockey Betting

Because there are so few players on the ice at any given time, betting on hockey is just as much about knowing about individual players as it is knowing about specific teams. The NHL is the major market for betting on this sport, but no matter which market you focus on, you’ll have to know certain statistics about certain players as well as the teams that they play for. You can use this information to try to figure out how many goals on average you believe each team will score which can then be used to try to find profitable bets.

The main defensive unit in hockey is the goalie, and you will always need to have statistics available for the main one or two goalies for each team. For example, you’ll need to know how many attempted goals they have seen against each rival team, how often they were successful in defending, and how often they allowed a goal. Setting this up will allow you to largely determine the defensive capabilities of any one team as a whole because the number of attempted goals will tell you a lot about the defensive play of the rest of the group.

In comparison to this is the offensive ability. The main scorers for each team will always be pretty obvious, and you’ll want to see how these players match up against different goalies from across the league. This will allow you to quickly figure out when the offensive will have the advantage and when the defense will be more likely to come out on top. The difference between the offense and defense will tell you the average number of goals that each time is expected to earn, and that will be the key to finding profitable bets.

The Types of Hockey Bets Available

Spread betting and money lines are the two most popular types of hockey bets that you are going to find online. There’s a potential problem with spread betting in hockey, however, and that’s the simple fact that most games are low-scoring. This means that it’s really easy for handicappers to find spreads that are too close to call, and that means that it can be difficult to find profitable bets. However, this is not always the case, and we’re going to show you why.

From the perspective of the sportsbook, spread betting doesn’t require that they avoid giving players profitable bets. Instead, it’s all about trying to keep the action even on each side of the spread. If they do this, then they guarantee that they make money. If they aren’t able to keep it fairly even, then it’s not guaranteed. If you’re going to take an approach that involves spread betting, then you are going to be looking at situations where the sportsbook has played the general public as a whole instead of individuals who are wanting to make smart bets. This can lead to profitable situations.

For the most part, however, you’re going to want to stick to money lines when you’re betting on hockey. Reading hockey money lines is pretty easy if you know what the numbers mean. You’ll see something like +110 on one team with something like -130 on the other team. The plus sign means that the team is an underdog while the minus sign means that the team is the favorite to win. So that means that a hockey betting line of +110 would give you a $110 profit on a wager of just $100. However, you’d need a $130 wager to turn a $100 profit on the -130 line. You can use these numbers to figure out how often each team needs to win for a bet to be profitable.

The Single-Market Focus

Because NHL betting (and other forms of betting on this game) is all about getting to know the statistics for a lot of teams and a lot of players, you’re generally going to need to know a lot of information about a lot of teams if you want to come up with a winning model. There are plenty of free spreadsheet tools out there that can help you with this, so don’t think that you have to spend money on some fancy software to have a chance.

A good place to start with focusing on the market as a whole is to list out all of the teams, the total number of goals they have scored per game and the total number of goals they have allowed per game. From here, you can come up with a rough idea of which teams are doing the best after they get a few games under their belt, and if you compare these numbers to the competition that they have faced, then the picture starts to become even more clear.

Overall, betting on hockey is one of the most intimate forms of betting on team sports because the scores are relatively low and there are so few players on the ice at any given time. That makes this game a favorite for people who love to get in deep to their betting analysis.